The
recent bloodless (referring to American blood — the most important to
U.S. policymakers) overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya has been touted
as a low-cost model for future U.S. military
interventions. The recent Libyan election is said to
have vindicated America’s “leadership from the rear”
strategy — supporting indigenous armies on the ground and allied air
forces with key items such as air-defense suppression, intelligence, and
logistics. Yet U.S. military assistance to the rebellion in
Libya is having unintended ill effects, much as have past U.S.
interventions.

In
1953, the United States and Britain overthrew the democratically
elected leader Mohammad Mossadegh, who threatened Western oil interests, and replaced him with the autocratic shah.
Instead of worrying about Iran’s economic development, the shah used his
oil profits to buy huge quantities of American weapons. Such neglect of
his people got him overthrown by radical Islamists in
the late 1970s. Iraq’s Sunni ruler, Saddam Hussein, was threatened
by Iran’s new Shi’ite revolutionary government and believed it to be
weak. Saddam invaded Iran in 1980 and was helped by the
United States and other Western powers, who were also threatened by the
Islamist Iran. With such Western assistance, Iraq won the war in
1988 and became the dominant power in the region. Saddam then
invaded neighboring Kuwait, leading to two wars with the United States,
including a U.S. invasion and costly war against recalcitrant
guerrillas. In the process, the United States shattered the Iraqi
government and army, thereby severely weakening the only force balancing
Iran in the region. Thus, U.S. policy over a 60-year period
built up a future foe, made it hostile, and then inadvertently
strengthened it. In addition, in the absence of a strong leader,
Iraq, an artificial country containing three major quarreling
ethno-sectarian groups, may yet fall back into civil war.

In
Afghanistan, in what seemed like a great way to “give the Soviet Union
its own Vietnam,” the United States, during the Cold War in the 1980s,
provided many weapons to the Sunni Islamist Afghan mujahedeen, who
eventually kicked out Soviet invasion forces. This seeming success
then backfired as a subsequent Afghan civil war resulted in victory by a
brutal radical Islamic movement called the Taliban. The former
mujahedeen also morphed into al-Qaeda, which was sheltered by the
Taliban and became the most severe threat to the U.S. homeland since the
British invasion during the War of 1812. Thus, after al-Qaeda attacked the United States on 9/11, the United States not only
decided to take out al-Qaeda, but also opted — ignoring three British failed
invasions of Afghanistan and the aforementioned Soviet debacle — to once
again invade, occupy, and try to remodel that country. It
failed miserably and is now trying to extricate itself gracefully from
the quagmire. In addition, the U.S. military presence in
Afghanistan has destabilized Pakistan by fueling rising Islamist
militancy and creating a new insurgency — the Pakistani Taliban — that now
threatens the nuclear-armed government of Pakistan.

As
these past examples indicate, when the dogs of American intervention
are unleashed, we don’t know where they’ll end up. In Libya, after
Gadhafi’s fall, there are armed militias galore, tribal friction, and
tensions between the oil-rich east and more populous west. Gadhafi
had many weapons caches and many of those arms, along with fighters
from Libya, have ended up in more populous neighboring Mali.
Islamist militants, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, have
taken over the cities of northern Mali. Thus, a
“humanitarian” intervention in Libya to save lives may indirectly result
in more lives being lost in an escalating civil war in Mali.

And
the perceived success of the Libyan episode has emboldened breakaway
factions in other countries and encouraged them to attempt to
attract Western military interventions. In the end, this
could lead to even more deaths. For example, in Syria, peaceful
protests have morphed into a violent rebellion, which is trying to put
pressure on the United States to intervene.

President
Barack Obama, in an election year, is now trying to avoid a much
riskier military intervention in Syria. But in this effort,
the ghosts of Libya are haunting his efforts. Russia, Syria’s
principal ally, was burned by the United States in the U.N. Security
Council during the Libyan intervention. The Russians and Chinese
acquiesced to a Security Council resolution to create and enforce a
no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians. Under this cover, the
United States and its Western allies expanded the mission to include
overthrowing Gadhafi. As a result, Russia has been reluctant to
support any resolution or behind-the scenes agreement that demands that
Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad should leave power. Russia has
supported Assad and has not pressured him to leave, not so much because
it sells him weapons or because it has a pathetically small naval
station in Syria, but does so as a pushback to U.S. meddling in
conflicts around the world.

In
conclusion, those who advocate using the Libyan episode as a future
model for U.S. intervention, especially in Syria, have overlooked its
harmful unintended consequences.

20120408306 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Feland%2F2012%2F07%2F10%2Fwars-have-unpredictable-and-dangerous-collateral-effects%2FWars+Have+Unpredictable+and+Dangerous+Collateral+Effects2012-07-11+06%3A00%3A08Ivan+Elandhttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012040830 to “Wars Have Unpredictable and Dangerous Collateral Effects”

There are so many problems in this article that it's difficult to know where to begin.

First, Iraq never "won" the Iran-Iraq war. At most it managed not to get defeated. It had to withdraw completely from Iranian territory – at war's end the fighting was virtually all well inside Iraq – it had to settle for a peace which left it with none of the objectives of the original attack fulfilled. It still had to share the Shatt Al Arab, Khuzestan remained in Iran, and the Ayatollahs stayed in power in Tehran. Iraq itself was so devastated that it was compelled by economic necessity, not bloody mindedness, to invade Kuwait. That the Kuwaitis were busy steaing Iraqi oil by slant-drilling across the border is another matter.

Then, what makes the writer of this article imagine that Libya was "a “humanitarian” intervention to save lives"? We all know what it was. As was the alQaeda victory in Kosovo and American aiding and abetment of Chechen rebels.

Iraq did a 'Pearl Harbor' on Iran, attacking them without warning in late '80 and with the backing of the US and others took some Iranian territory. By mid '82, Iran regained all its lost ground and was on the offensive for the next 5 or 6 years until UNSCR598 concluded a brokered peace arrangement- Iraq, even with all the weight of the US behind it- including the use of US-supplied chemical weapons, did not defeat Iran by any means.

HOWEVER, the title and premise of the article are indeed correct- we engage nations in wars and all sorts of nefarious shenanigans without a single thought as to what the mid- to long-term consequences will be. As long as we get what we want *right now* that's all that matters, right?

Iraq did 'Pearl Harbor' on Iran, attacking them without warning in late '80 and with the backing of the US and others took some Iranian territory. By mid '82, Iran regained all its lost ground and was on the offensive for the next 5 or 6 years until UNSCR598 concluded a brokered peace arrangement- Iraq, even with all the weight of the US behind it- including the use of US-supplied chemical weapons, did not defeat Iran by any means.

HOWEVER, the title and premise of the article are indeed correct- we engage nations in wars and all sorts of nefarious shenanigans without a single thought as to what the mid- to long-term consequences will be. As long as we get what we want *right now* that's all that matters, right?

The only reason we got into the Libyan War was that the French and UK would not have been able to fight a third world army with their military. We went in and supported our "allies" because they couldn't wipe themselves. People always talk about how our military budget is bigger than the next xx number of nations. This is why, our "allies" don't spend enough money to defend their own country never mind being able to go on the offensive. Canada has about 35K military personnel; NYC has more police and firemen than that.